Worth the Risk
by Call-me-Cassandra
Summary: Arthur Weasley finds a letter from his son in his darkest hour, giving him his perspective on life and death from beyond the grave.


Disclaimer: I do not own Arthur, or Fred, or the Burrow. I have now finished stating the obvious.

AN: This was written for EvylinDevilin's Letter Challenge, where I was challenged to write a letter exchange between Arthur and Fred Weasley.

The kitchen of the Burrow flared green as Arthur stumbled from the fireplace, pale and shaking. The battle was finally over: the dead had been counted, the living had been comforted, and the families and friends had gathered together, desperate for contact. He had supported his family: held them when they cried, found them a place to stay in the castle, kept them from breaking down. Finally, he had seized a moment to slip home for some supplies. It was the first time he had been alone since it started and he cringed at the sound of the silence in their once bustling home. They had won, but he had never realized that victory could feel so much like defeat.

He suddenly slumped down at the table, unable to be strong any more now that no one was leaning on him. "Fred," he moaned in a broken voice. "Fred." It was the first time he had said his son's name since he had seen him lying there, cold and broken and oh so silent. The sound of the name in the quiet of the room made it final somehow and he could no longer hold back the sobs. "Oh, my brave son."

It had been the stillness and the silence that were the worst. Since he was born, Fred had never stopped moving, never stopped making sound. He was chaos incarnate and seeing him rigid in death had seemed so wrong. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was never supposed to have lost his child, his little boy. He couldn't help but wonder what he had done wrong, what more he could have done to keep him safe. A father's job is to protect his children and he had failed. He had failed. The agony that thought created was almost to great to bear.

After what felt like hours he lifted his head from his arms and looked around, too tired to make himself get up and carry on. He immediately spotted an envelope sitting on the table before him, one that had not been there when he arrived. His heart clenched as he recognized the bold scrawl across the front with a single word, _Dad_. With trembling hands, he lifted it and pulled the parchment from within.

Arthur immediately recognized it, after all, he had written similar letters to each of his children and Molly a long time ago. It broke his heart that his son had felt the necessity to write one, and more so that the necessity had become a reality.

_Dad,_

_ I really hope you never read this, but I know better. I've really hoped a lot of things over the years. I hoped Voldemort would never come back. I hoped I could avoid growing up for just a bit longer. I hoped that those I loved could stay safe. Some days it seems all I have is hope. Our family has been so lucky. We have avoided loss in a time when everyone has lost and I can only hope that our luck continues to hold. If you're reading this though, mine ran out. _

_ I know that I tell a lot of jokes, but I wanted to let you know, for once with complete seriousness, just how much I love you. You have taught me so much about what it means to be a man. You have taught me that honor is more important than money, that love is more important than power, and that family—by blood and by choice—is more important than anything. Our family has always been the richest that I could hope for in the ways that really matter and that is because of you. Thank you for showing me that purity of blood is worthless without purity of heart. I know that our family could so easily have been like the Malfoys and the Blacks, our blood is just as pure as theirs. Thank you for having the wisdom to keep us from following their path and for teaching us so much about what really matters. _

_ Please don't mourn for me forever. I know without a doubt that we will win this battle, that we can't loose. I've always been shite at divination, but so many people fighting for what is truly right cannot fail. Someday, we will be safe again. Everything that I have been through, the duels and the running and the losses, I just wanted you to know that they were all worth it. Everything was worth it. You led us down a difficult path, but we followed because it was the right path. You made "blood traitor" a badge of honor that we wore with pride. I never said it enough or I joked about it, but you know I'll love you forever. I'll see you on the other side of the veil, but take your time._

_Fred_

Hands shaking, he carefully folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. He wiped the tears from his face and stood, striding purposefully about the house, collecting clothes and pets and pieces of home to comfort his family back at Hogwarts. He would be strong, he would try to be the kind of man that his son saw in him, even when he didn't feel like it. The ragged edges of his heart, still broken and bleeding, had been soothed just a bit. He knew that it would never stop aching, but he would take comfort in the words of his brave, reckless, heroic son. Everything was worth it.

Review and I will send you telepathic warm fuzzies of love.


End file.
